Open Road Films
117 min., dir. by Joe Carnahan with Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, and Frank Grillo

In recent years, Liam Neeson has become the quintessential ass-kicking everyman. Based on that fact, when you’re sitting at home and the trailer for The Grey comes on, you would think the film consists of 117 minutes of Neeson punching wolves in the face. Obviously not the case, the stark lack of action is not what makes The Grey fall short of its potential.

Ottway (Neeson) works with some unruly types who drill for oil in Alaska. His job: to hide in the brush and pick off any wolves that may come to attack the crews. This is supposed to be his final job; he supposes that he is finished and heading home. However, when the plane carrying him and the group of miscreants crashes in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, Ottway has to take charge, as the remaining men seem to be the focus of a wild pack of angry wolves.

Director Joe Carnahan scales back from his recent full-blown flashy action pictures and moves back into his Narc mode, the film that bought him more attention from mainstream audiences. The Grey is meant to be suspenseful, but foreshadows every move it makes. Carnahan hasn’t lost his thoughtful touch, but his tight storytelling from a film like Narc seems to have been lost. It’s unclear if he’s trying to meld his two personas together, or if the studio pushed for more terror, making the wolves look like jacked up video game archetypes that appear false on every level.

Knowledge of wolves and their natural behavior is in no way my forte. Watching The Grey would make anyone believe that these monsters kill anything and everything in their path. It would be stupid to say that can’t happen, but my better judgment and basic intuition point in the opposite direction. And in addition to this point of contention, there are still a ton of issues with this film.

Two things are revealed fairly quickly: no one is coming to save the stranded crew, and that staying by the crash site is tantamount to placing a plate of delicious ground chuck in front of the wild hunters. As the group heads for the trees, we are shown the survivors’ difficultly trudging through snow up to their knees. Their movement is about as fast as a sleepwalking snail, when suddenly, the wolves are upon them: “Run!” Magically, the snow and winds are no issue, and these battered men are able to speed away like gazelles. This happens on more than one occasion, as unbelievable leaps and acts of survival appear throughout.

Eventually, the protagonists discuss what they are fighting to stay alive for. Ottway reveals a four-line poem his father wrote that describes his will to fight — and this questionable two-hour survival movie is a visual depiction of what the poem stands for. Well, why do I need someone to stretch out a story that pales in comparison to what Bear Grylls does in real life? Isn’t your succinct four-line poem illustration enough?

From its implausible situations, to its shaky storytelling (which includes a completely unnecessary and out-of-left-field twist), The Grey feels like a story that should be a short novella and stay that way. I don’t need action for a movie to be worth my time, and The Grey is a watch-able, valiant effort. However, it needs an overhaul to be considered a great picture.

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Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache and also the contributing film writer for IPaintMyMind.